The Wolf Girl
by Kuann
Summary: Moro was never certain why the Forest Spirit chose the one he did.
1. The Wolf Goddess

**The Wolf Goddess**

The voices echoed loudly from behind the bushes, telling Moro their exact locations. Humans were terribly noisy; it was almost disgusting.

She had first spied them atop her den in the hillside, the center of one of her many hunting grounds. Like all humans, this pair had staked out a forest clearing for their encampment. Their intention was to have freedom of movement in the event of a boar attack; they would be able to flee in any direction, while the boars would only charge in one.

But that was the mindset of prey. Moro was a predator.

"We'll keep going in the morning," said the man of the pair. "For now we have to get this lean-to up to mask our scent."

The rustle of leaves told Moro that another sapling had been cut down. The humans were gathering wood for a shelter – not that it would help them. They had strayed into _her_ territory, near _her_ cubs.

They would feel _her_ wrath.

Sensing the moment with almost supernatural intuition, the monstrous white wolf exploded from the brush. The man swore, and the woman sitting beside him screamed. Moro crossed the distance between them and lunged, but the man was quick enough to push himself to the side, and her jaws found only open air. The wolf goddess spied a tiny lump of cloth roll out of the distracted woman's hands, but paid it no heed.

Moro dug her paws into the soft, mossy dirt of the clearing. She turned on a dime and found her prey's trail once again. The man had already broken into a run, tracking away from the woman. He might have been hoping to save his mate by serving as a distraction. He might have been hoping to save himself. Moro didn't care. She caught him in seconds, clamping his right shoulder in her mighty jaws. She jerked her head sideways, feeling the satisfying snap of his joints and then weightlessness as his dismembered body was hurled through the air and into the foliage.

_NEXT!_ Moro felt a focused rage pour into her heart. She turned to the woman, who had made it to the edge of the clearing. The human turned her ugly, hairless face as she ran. Strength surged through Moro's legs and she bounded upward, across the entire clearing and down onto her prey. The human screamed.

It was over. The clearing looked like a battlefield; a bloody, severed arm lay motionless in the moss. Beside it was a still, unrecognizable corpse. Moro stalked away from the carnage. She had no intention of eating fatty human flesh, and the smell of their blood was bitter to her nostrils.

_May they know that the gods own this land._

Her thoughts were already turning to her cubs when she heard a whiny, bothersome noise. Moro turned toward the bundle of cloth that the humans had dropped earlier. To her surprise, it was now moving.

_A human cub._

The wolf goddess padded to the squirming lump of fabric. She had never seen what a human infant looked like; for a moment, curiosity overcame her, and she carefully lifted a fold of fabric with her teeth.

What she saw was uglier than she had expected. Like a human, it had a squashed face, hairless skin, and little arms with long, grasping fingers where paws should have been. But this one – this _thing – _was fat, had a voluminous head, and made the most bothersome whine she had ever heard.

Moro snarled and reared her head, preparing to silence the child in one gulp. Seconds passed, however, and the end did not come. She was now staring at something else entirely; a halo of wild grass had suddenly sprung up above the moss, surrounding the infant and growing up toward Moro's still-snarling head.

_It can't be..._

There was only one being that could have done this.

A soft footfall alerted her to his presence. A giant deer, covered in shaggy fur, strode toward her from the brush. A multitude of antlers burst from his head, forming the most beautiful crown in all of nature. Human-like eyes stared at her from a bearded face, sometimes like a man's and sometimes like a deer's. Fresh shoots sprung up around the Forest Spirit's every step, only to wither moments later. The grass around the human child, however, remained stubbornly vibrant.

Moro backed away from the approaching god. She did not fear him, but instinct told her to stay out of the way. He stepped over the human remains; both withered to dust as he passed, drifting off into the forest breeze. Moro glanced at the particles as they left, but Shishigami's eyes remained fixed on her the whole while.

Finally, after she had retreated to the edge of the clearing, he stopped at the crying infant. The Forest Spirit slowly stooped down and _licked _the child, first on the forehead and then on each cheek. Moro did not think; she merely watched, unable to understand what she was seeing.

A bird called, signaling its retreat to the nest for the night. Shishigami looked up at the twilit horizon, his face now very much that of a deer. He gave Moro one last glance, then turned into the brush and vanished.

The crying had stopped. She cautiously made her way back to the baby in silence, examining it in a new way. The spots where Shishigami had licked it were now red and swollen – changing before her eyes into dark red markings. Moro knew that they would never fade, no matter how old the child became. Still, despite how painful it looked, the human cub slept soundly in its bed of grass.

Moro, like all the forest creatures, could not interpret her lord's reasoning. What she could see, however, was his intention.

_This cub... it must live_.

She would not pretend to be pleased with her fate, but she would fulfill it. Gathering the baby into her jaws with all the care that she would her own cub, Moro padded into the forest and left the strange clearing behind.


	2. San

**San**

San growled and she lunged at her brother, colliding heavily with his side and sending him stumbling away from the scrap of meat. The two of them grappled for a time, neither willing to surrender the snack. Moro watched on quietly, allowing her cubs' playful instincts to run their course.

Spying movement away from the battle, she glanced up at the slab of raw meat she had abandoned atop a rock. Her third cub, sleeker than his twin brother but smaller, crept along the rocky crags leading to the den. He hoped to steal the meat while the other two bickered. Moro's ears perked slightly and she barked, alerting her two cubs to the danger.

San glanced in the right direction, but her brother was quicker. Taking advantage of the distraction, he shook violently and threw her off. She cried out in alarm and rolled backward, slamming into a rock.

The two wolves continued the struggle, but Moro found her eyes drawn to San. The girl had curled up where she fell, and though her face was obscured from view, Moro could hear the telltale signs of whimpering beneath her folded arms.

Moro let out a mental sigh. Her true cubs were never this fragile.

It had been six years since that day in the clearing. Her cubs had grown much since then – they were now three feet tall at the shoulder, and growing every day. San had grown too, looking every bit like the human she was. Her limbs had extended, and some of the fat had fallen away. Still, her crying occurred often and over seemingly small things. Moro suspected that that was just part of being human – fragility, ineptitude. It was still no excuse.

And yet, for all her flaws, Moro found San's presence surprisingly... bearable. The girl's occasional laughter sent vibrations through her heart, and the trust with which she snuggled to her "mother" was miraculous. The three marks on her face had indeed remained, growing into curving red triangles. Her hair had grown out, a dark blonde curtain that framed her head. Despite her human nakedness, Moro had begun to notice a beauty in her.

The sound of whimpering faded, and San picked herself off the ground. After a quick wiping of her runny nose, she charged forward, landing a powerful tackle onto the smaller of her two brothers. Moro was not entirely surprised – she had seen bouts of strength in her daughter before.

_Perhaps it is not so bad._

As one of the wisest animals of the forest, Moro did an awful lot of reflection. She now turned her thoughts to the marks the Forest Spirit had placed upon her daughter, and the purpose he intended for her.


End file.
